National African Integration and Families Association Toronto (NAIFA Toronto) is a grass-root community-based multi-service and advocacy agency serving people of African and African descent, especially young people. NAIFA Toronto was formed in 1993 by concerned elders and community leaders worried by the impacts of the justice and immigration systems on the life outcomes of the African Canadian community members in Toronto and its surrounding areas. It was incorporated on March 24, 1994 and became a charitable organization in 2009. NAIFA Toronto services and programs reflect African cultural concepts of Each one Teach One and Embodied Community most vividly and indelibly in the principles of Ubuntu and Ukama. The doctrines that inform these core principles permeate all our programs and services from development to implementation and evaluation. They also dictate the manner by which the agency interacts with its service or program users, the general community and its funders and other stakeholders.
NAIFA Toronto focuses on both preventative and rehabilitative programs. In order to foster and promote a new beginning, NAIFA Toronto works with and will continue to develop links with other organizations and the various prison and detention systems. The agency further coordinates services that promote the study of causes and impacts of crime and detention in Toronto and its surrounding areas by partnering with various community based researchers and institutions.
Mission
Our mission is:
To work with African Canadian, landed immigrants and refugees involved in the justice and immigration systems and their families and communities to identify, prevent and/or alleviate the direct and collateral impacts and consequences of involvement or of being at-risk of involvement in these institutional structures both to the individuals concerned and their immediate community;
To assist in the documentation of the aforementioned impacts and consequences, with the ultimate aim being to inform various constituents and stakeholders, especially policy makers and the African Canadian community.
Mandate
To support new beginnings for those involved in the justice and immigration systems, especially youth, by providing them with support services and programs that both empower and offer them genuine and credible alternatives to full integration into the Canadian society.
Goals
Our goals are:
- To ensure that program and service participants, especially youth, are protected from conflicts and involvement in the prison industrial complex.
- To offer both preventative and remedial programs and services using proactive rather than crisis management approach.
- To center the people we work with in all our endeavours, activism and advocacy. This includes using language that emphasizes the person rather than his or her act.
- To promote a more inclusive Toronto and its surrounding areas irrespective of race, age, income, gender, creed, religion, sexuality or any other basis for discrimination, alienation and/or marginalization.
Our Value Statement:
NAIFA Toronto is committed to affecting and effecting changes that build and strengthen community both for those living now and for future generations irrespective of race, age, income, gender, creed, religion, sexuality or any other basis for discrimination, alienation and/or marginalization.
NAIFA Toronto exists to voice the opinions and concerns of those impacted by the justice and immigration systems, especially youth and to emphasize preventive services and programs for them within an environment that underscores the importance of their culture and creativity.
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